Snowy Range Pass

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Georgia mountain high

We have spent the last three days exploring the area
around Blairsville, GA.This a fast
growing resort and residential area in the Blue Ridge Mountains just south of
the North Carolina border.It is a
rugged and beautiful area with lots of things to do.We are staying at a resort designed to be all
owner occupied. Unfortunately, the first operator went broke and I am not sure about
the second. It is a beautiful spot but they have not done much with it.We would not consider buying here with the
current conditions, but is had been a fine place to spend a few days.

Our first outing consisted of a loop trip through
the mountains enjoying the views and getting a feel for the area.Certainly, one of the more unique towns was
Helen.It is made to look like a
Bavarian town with that fun tourist trap feeling.With some imagination you could see yourself
at a Oktoberfest in Germany. When we checked the history of the town, what was
really interesting was; that there is no real German heritage in the town.It seems that in 1968 the town was having
severe financial problems and a local artist, who was stationed in Germany,
came up with the idea of completely redoing the town in the Bavarian
motif.So the whole town was redecorated
to look as it does today to attract tourists and it seems that it was a very
good plan! I thought of Judy when I saw
one of the items for sale in a gift store.

Very near Helen is the Anna Ruby Falls. Unfortunately,
even though it is accessed via a state park, the falls sits in a federal forest
and was closed.

So we opted to tour one of the oldest Georgia State
Parks-Vogel.It consists of a
recreational lake, hiking trails and a campground.We enjoyed a hike around the lake and toured
the campground.The campground is very
tight but has many level sites.If
arriving in a big rig, be prepared for a few squeaky spots.

Today, we paid a second visit to Vogel State Park and
then visited with Karen and Al at their park.We had a great visit with them, and solved all the world problems.We hope to be back in this area in the new
future and may be able to stay at this private owner park.If we time it right, we may even get to use
one of their spots.Once again, I failed
to get any pictures of our visit.This
is getting to be a bad habit.

I do love those bit mugs of German beer! Helen is a town close to the Appalachian Trail, and is where many hikers get off to send their excess gear & clothing home. It's not far from the southern terminus of the trail (Springer Mtn, near Dahlonega). I like that part of Georgia.

I had one of those huge beers one time when we were in Paris, just before getting on a tour boat. No toilets on the boat. *sigh*We still laugh about that. I guess I was thirsty and ordered "une grande bière ." Idiot.Cute village. The roofing material is asphalt shingles. You won't see that in Bavaria. Good effort though.

I really hope you didn't find those "UFF DA"-mugs in that Bavarian town, cause "Uff Da" is a Norwegian expression if a person is perplexed and disappointed. Some places have a problem with keeping those European Nations apart.